Exclusive articles:
Criterion Collection: Four Feathers [Blu-ray] | DVD Review
"While it’s inherently unfair to apply today’s standards to a screenplay of this vintage, even the most tolerant appraisal would have to conclude that, despite its historical basis, this Four Feathers is guilty of excessive condescension and aggressive pandering. The film’s storyline simply isn’t believable, and its three acts range from sentimental to melodramatic to outright preposterous."
Criterion Collection: Eclipse Series 29: Aki Kaurismäki’s Leningrad Cowboys [Blu-ray] | DVD Review
"While starkly arid humor has always been a Kaurismaki hallmark, these films lean more toward the realm of straight-forward comedy, while retaining the director’s patented edge of laconic bleakness. Filled with visual - and occasional aural - absurdity, this collection is an entertaining immersion in all manner of culture shock, as our intrepid troubadours make their way from Russia to New York to Mexico and back, playing just about every filthy dive and low rent wedding reception along the way."
Review: Terri (Blu-ray)
"2011 Sundance entry Terri is a low-key American indie all about the struggles of an obese high schooler (Jacob Wysocki) in the thoroughly funky outskirts of Pasadena. The film has the cloy, ironic ponderous that inflicts so many smaller productions these days - the smug superiority of the tightly budgeted – yet manages to retain winning measures of intrigue and charm."
Review: Criterion Collection: Harakiri [Blu-ray]
"Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1963, Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri is an elegantly told, parabolic tale of hypocrisy, class struggle and revenge. In fact, the film will likely remind today’s viewers of the work of Quentin Tarantino, as Harakiri is filled with nail biting tension, sudden, shocking violence and a richly layered narrative that slowly, at times painfully, peels down to its bare, heartbreaking substrate."
DVD Review: The Red Chapel
"The Red Chapel is a cold, creepy and at times astonishing documentary that manages to survive its own eccentricities."
